Monday, March 08, 2010

Since the genius of the American system is maintaining the eagle in the balanced center of the spectrum, the Founders warned against a number of temptations which might lure subsequent generations to abandon their freedoms and their rights by subjecting themselves to a strong federal administration operating on the collectivist Left. They warned against the "welfare state" where the government endeavors to take care of everyone from the cradle to the grave. Jefferson wrote:

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

They warned against confiscatory taxation and deficit spending. Jefferson said it was immoral for one generation to pass on the results of its extravagance in the form of debts to the next generation. He wrote:"... we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life expectancy of the majority."Every generation of Americans struggled to pay off the national debt up until the present on.The Founders also warned that the only way for the nation to prosper was to have equal protection of "rights." and not allow the government to get involved in trying to provide equal distribution of "things." They also warned against the pooling of property as advocated by the proponents of communism. Samuel Adams said they had done everything possible to make the ideas of socialism and communism unconstitutional. Said he:

The Utopian schemes of leveling [re-distribution of the wealth] and a community of goods [ central ownership of the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional.